Wednesday, 12 November 2008

The Journal of European Public Policy is dedicating its last issue (n° 8) of the year 2008 to European party politics.

The issue covers the role of parties with a specific look to different EU institutions, starting from Parliament and including also the Commission, the EU Council, as well as the European Council.

I don't have access to the full texts of the individual articles today, but as soon as I have I will give you a short insight into everything interesting. So far, let me list their titles so that you get an idea about what science is working these days:

Party politics as usual? The role of political parties in EU legislative decision-making - Authors: Lindberg, Bjorn; Rasmussen, Anne; Warntjen, Andreas

Who leads, who follows? Re-examining the party-electorate linkages on European integration - Author: Hellstrom, Johan

Decision-making dynamics in the European Commission: partisan, national or sectoral? - Author: Wonka, Arndt

Party soldiers in a non-partisan community? Party linkage in the European Parliament - Author: Rasmussen, Anne

Are political parties controlling legislative decision-making in the European Parliament? The case of the services directive - Author: Lindberg, Bjorn

Parties in the Council? - Authors: Hagemann, Sara; Hoyland, Bjorn

Party politics in the European Council - Authors: Tallberg, Jonas; Johansson, Karl Magnus

Without knowing the exact content of the issue it is hard to evaluate its pertinence or quality; however, taking into account the titles of the articles, I suppose that they will provide those of us interested in the backgrounds of European decision-making with a number of usefull insights for our practical work and our blogging activities.

If anyone of you has already read one of these articles, feel free to comment! If not, I will come back as quick as possible with my own remarks.

Read also the follow-up to this article with a discussion of some of the articles.